Sens. John Whitmire, D-Houston, and Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, this evening questioned Gov. Rick Perry's push for more economic development incentives money in a very tight state budget situation.

Whitmire (right, AP photo) pounded Perry's request for $20 million more to lure film and video game production to Texas, and a Perry aide's acknowledgement the governor would like funds restored for a national tourism ad campaign -- though that wasn't in Perry's Top 9 wish list items presented to the Senate Finance Committee.

"It'd probably be Item 10 or 11," said Milton Rister, director of administration in the governor's office.

Ogden, who heads the budget-writing committee, said Perry's request for a $50 million restoration of the Texas Enterprise Fund's unspent money would be "a tough sell on this committee." Ogden then pushed an idea he's floated lately -- to use money from the deal-closing fund to expand programs, such as Haven for Hope in San Antonio (but The Bridge in Dallas is another) that train the homeless for jobs as cooks and other positions.

Perry has spoken against using any rainy-day money to close a two-year budget gap that could be as much as $27 billion, to maintain existing services.

Whitmire, though, tried to highlight a possible Perry inconsistency.

He elicited testimony from Rister that the governor's office has $265 million in unspent money in the Enterprise Fund, Emerging Technology Fund and other programs that it would like to carry over to the next two year cycle -- and maintain as a sort of emergency account.

"How would that be different from a rainy day fund?" Whitmire asked. "Would that be kind of your rainy day fund that you want us to allow you to use?"

For more of the Whitmire-Rister exchange, see the jump.

Whitmire: We're going to be spending millions of dollars on tourism and movie production, but we're going to be cutting back on Medicaid, letting teachers go, [cutting the Texas] School for the Deaf and autistic children? ... Help me understand how you sit there and ask for those kinds of feel-good programs that might create some jobs but at the same time, we're letting medical students go, residential residents go, state employees.

Rister: The priorities that the governor has outlined to us are job creation.

Whitmire: Even though ... we're letting teachers go, TxDOT is going to let engineers go, medical professors are going to be going? So how do you balance the two?

Rister: It's a tough balance. ... The governor has put a priority on bringing jobs to Texas. ... Growing our economy is the way we get out of the recession. ...

Whitmire: But UT Southwestern Medical [Center] yesterday told us that in the Dallas area, with the cuts under Senate Bill 1, they'll lose over 1,000 employees, over 1,000 jobs ... in Dallas. So we've got to take money from them to allow you to try to increase movie production and tourism. I don't think the people of Texas that I represent would understand that.